The Other Contraception Mandate Fight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I'm one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. I do want to do\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/the-other-contraception-mandate-fight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Other Contraception Mandate Fight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I'm one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog. \u00a0More details here. 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{"id":2023,"date":"2012-02-28T10:16:04","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T15:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2012-12-06T15:17:56","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T20:17:56","slug":"the-other-contraception-mandate-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/the-other-contraception-mandate-fight.html","title":{"rendered":"The Other Contraception Mandate Fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Remember you can vote once per day for the About.com Atheism Awards. \u00a0I\u2019m one of five nominees for Best Atheist Blog<\/a>. \u00a0 More details here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

I do want to do a substantive post on the contraceptive mandate later in the week, but, to set the stage, I want to talk about the conscience objection for pharmacists first.. \u00a0Since we haven\u2019t all been having\u00a0this<\/em> argument to death (at least not recently), maybe it can give us a better lead-in to the more topical fight.<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Washington has ruled<\/a> that \u201cChristian pharmacists could not be required to stock and dispense medication that violated their religious beliefs.\u201d \u00a0The main problem medication is Plan B, but across the country, some\u00a0pharmacists\u00a0and drug stores have\u00a0 refused to sell any kind of contraception, including condoms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the much-cited analogy of forcing a kosher butcher to sell pork is applicable. \u00a0A pharmacy isn\u2019t just any kind of store where I might go to buy a product. \u00a0It\u2019s the place I go to get my prescriptions filled \u2014 i.e. the place where I pay for the drugs a medical professional has decided I need.<\/p>\n

If I live in a rural area, with few pharmacies, I may not have the option of going to a different store. \u00a0I\u2019m also out of luck if the doctor\u2019s office calls in the prescription to a particular store without checking if the staff will hand over the medicine. \u00a0When medicine must be taken within a certain\u00a0time frame, traveling to another store may make it impossible for the drug to be effective.<\/p>\n

Refusing to fill prescriptions is like a mail carrier refusing to deliver\u00a0Playboy<\/em>. \u00a0The burden shouldn\u2019t be on the customer to have their\u00a0magazines\u00a0shipped by DHL if their local carrier objected to their subscriptions or for the company to check ahead of time to see if any of their customers had conscientious objectors on their mail route. \u00a0If you couldn\u2019t in good conscience hand over dirty magazines, you shouldn\u2019t be a mail carrier. \u00a0If filling prescriptions for legal drugs violates your conscience, you shouldn\u2019t become a pharmacist.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not for you to insert yourself between patients and doctors in these circumstances. \u00a0Pharmacists aren\u2019t mere delivery people \u2014 they have medical training and may suggest a customer not fill a\u00a0prescription\u00a0if it would interfere with another medication. \u00a0They are a valuable error-checking step in the health care system. \u00a0But, because they are trusted to give medical advice, they can\u2019t abuse their authority to coerce patients on non-health related matters.<\/p>\n

Pharmacists who object to contraception aren\u2019t being silenced when they\u2019re denied conscience objections \u2014 they\u2019re just being silenced at their job<\/em>. \u00a0They\u2019re free to talk to friends, give lectures, or distribute leafets to try and persuade people to not get prescriptions for contraception in the first place. \u00a0They can skip persuasion and vote for politicians who will push to overturn Griswold v Connecticut. \u00a0They just can\u2019t pursue those ends at work.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"